Rolex 24 – Hours 2 & 3
© Janos Wimpffen & Russell Wittenberg

The second hour begins with Tony George preparing to go into the No. 00 Crawford-Porsche. They prepare to unfurl the yellow flag. More significantly, Allmendinger passes Goossens for the lead. The No. 16 Dyson entry has gone behind the wall, briefly. Less importantly, the problems of Porsche No. 28 and Riley-Porsche No. 47 continue.

Nick Ham has the No. 70 Mazda back up to fifth in class with the Tafel-Tafel-Farnbacher-Synergy order holding station ahead of him in GT. Donohue and Pruett have been having a good battle for third overall. There is drama for the No. 10 Riley with ECU issues. It’s in the garage as Jan Magnussen takes over from Wayne Taylor. The No. 08 Mazda nearly collected Marc Goossens as the Riley in under John Finger at Turn 1.

Positions At Two Hours
DP
1 05 DP BMW Riley Bill Auberlen Matthew Alhadeff Gene Sigal Karl Wendlinger 66 laps
2 01 DP Lexus Riley Scott Pruett Salvador Duran Juan Pablo Montoya
3 91 DP Pontiac Riley Jim Matthews Marc Goossens Jimmie Johnson Ryan Hunter-Reay
4 6 DP Lexus Riley Henri Zogaib Ian James Paul Tracy AJ Allmendinger
5 60 DP Lexus Riley Mark Patterson Oswaldo Negri Jr Helio Castroneves Sam Hornish Jr
6 58 DP Porsche Riley David Donohue Darren Law Buddy Rice Scott Sharp Hurley Haywood
7 02 DP Lexus Riley Scott Dixon Dan Wheldon Memo Rojas
8 77 DP Ford Doran Memo Gidley Fabrizio Gollin Michel Jourdain Oriol Servia
9 39 DP Porsche Crawford Christian Fittipaldi Eddie Cheever Jr Emmanuel Collard Sascha Maassen
10 75 DP Pontiac Riley Colin Braun Max Papis JJ Lehto
11 7 DP Pontiac Riley Chris Festa Tomas Enge Christian Montanari Roger Yasukawa Kris Szekeres
12 11 DP Pontiac Riley Milka Duno Patrick Carpentier Darren Manning Ryan Dalziel
13 59 DP Porsche Riley Hurley Haywood JC France Joao Barbosa Roberto Moreno David Donohue
6 19 DP Ford Crawford Rob Finlay Michael Valiante Bobby Labonte Michael McDowell
15 10 DP Pontiac Riley Wayne Taylor Max Angelelli Jeff Gordon Jan Magnussen 65 laps
16 61 DP Lexus Riley Brian Frisselle Mark Wilkins Burt Frisselle David Empringham
17 3 DP Lexus Riley Shane Lewis Randy Ruhlman Graham Rahal Elliott Forbes-Robinson
18 76 DP Pontiac Riley Tracy Krohn Nic Jonsson Boris Said
19 84 DP Pontiac Riley George Robinson Wally Dallenbach Paul Dallenbach Katherine Legge
20 16 DP Porsche Crawford Chris Dyson Rob Dyson Guy Smith Oliver Gavin 64 laps
28 47 DP Porsche Riley Charles Morgan Rob Morgan Timo Bernhard BJ Zacharias –6 laps
39 23 DP Porsche Crawford Patrick Long Jorg Bergmeister Romain Dumas –8 laps
57 20 DP Pontiac Crawford Andy Wallace Butch Leitzinger Tony Stewart –11 laps
62 99 DP Pontiac Riley Jon Fogarty Alex Gurney Jimmy Vasser Bob Stallings –28 laps

GT
23 85 GT Porsche GT3 Cup Leh Keen Pierre Ehret Dirk Werner Jorg Hardt
24 74 GT Porsche GT3 Cup Eric Lux Wolf Henzler Dominik Farnbacher Jim Tafel
25 17 GT Porsche GT3 Cup Dave Lacey Greg Wilkins Johnny Mowlem Tom Papadopoulos Lance Arnold
26 72 GT Porsche GT3 Cup Andrew Davis Nathan Swartzbaugh Robin Liddell Dirk Muller Jim Tafel
27 64 GT Porsche GT3 Cup Jim Lowe Jim Pace Johannes van Over Ralf Kelleners
29 81 GT Porsche GT3 Cup Steve Johnson Patrick Huisman Richard Westbrook Richard Lietz
30 70 GT Mazda RX-8 David Haskell Sylvain Tremblay Nick Ham Randy Pobst
32 06 GT Pontiac GXP Leighton Reese Tim Lewis Jr Johnny O'Connell Paul Edwards
33 07 GT Pontiac GXP.R Paul Edwards Kelly Collins Andy Pilgrim Johnny O'Connell

Bill Auberlen has stopped after an excellent double stint during which he battled past Scott Dixon’s Ganassi entry. Allmendinger stops to hand over to Ian James and Scott Pruett puts the No. 01 Ganassi Riley into the lead. The No. 20 Crawford-Pontiac returned to the race for one slow lap and came back to the pits. The No. 6 Riley-Lexus (Ian James) has smoke coming from the left rear, missed the chicane, and returned slowly and directly to the garage. This car lost 18 laps.

Story on the early incident—Auriemma’s hood flew up, he panicked and slammed on the brakes as Gurney came up behind. The Gainsco Riley tagged the Porsche. Once the front suspension damage was cleared up the l/rear axle broke on the pole car.

We’re nearing three hours with no caution periods—some sort of a recent record. The No. 43 Corvette has been leaking oil and has gone behind the wall. Also back there somewhere are the No. 48 Corvette, the No. 46 Corvette, and for variety the Spencer Mazda.

Up where it counts the Ganassi pair are in a nice scrap with Dixon passing Montoya. Henzler is wrapping up a mammoth three-hour stint all in the lead. The No. 20 Crawford has been having ECU problems—epidemic ahead?

The lone Ferrari had been running well but has lost about ten seconds per lap. Pier Angelo Masselli is now driving and he seems to be having a problem. Corrected when Andrea Montermini takes over. The No. 75 Krohniley is changing its ECU.

Near the end of the hour Dixon slows a little and Montoya reclaims the lead. Darren Law is now second in the No. 58 Bruley.

There aren’t many cars on the lead lap – just seven (01, 58, 02, 91, 75, 05 and 60) at the end of hour 3. Milka Duno lost a lot of ground, having taken over #11 in the top six. She was soon a lap down. Chris Festa also lost ground in the other SAMAX Riley, while Matthew Alhadeff did a pretty good job hanging on in the top six, after Auberlen’s early, fine work.

Besides the top four cars, Jan Magnussen and Ollie Gavin were piling on the 1:45s and 1:46s, in the delayed SunTrust and Dyson cars.

Wolf Henzler pitted after nearly three hours - with a lead of approaching a minute.

Wayne Taylor wheeled the #10 SunTrust Riley into the garage at about the 3-hour mark. The rear bonnet came off and the crew tore into the engine compartment. Taylor reported that the engine was cutting out and seemed to be down on power. The Bosch ECU was replaced along with the left side coil bank. Repairs were made and Taylor was back in the race within 5 minutes. Jeff Gordon replaced Taylor shortly thereafter but Gordon’s Hans device became hung up on the seat, requiring another stop to fix it. The #10 is now 4 laps down but lap times are good.

The #6 Shank Riley Lexus led briefly and was very quick with AJ Allmendinger behind the wheel but they also were having some mechanical issues. The battery had to be replaced during the first stop but the crew did the job quickly and did not lose any track position. The team now believes the alternator was the problem but elected to stay out. Ian James took over fromr Allmendinger and only completed one lap before the car slowed to a crawl and was back in the pits. Quick repairs were made and seem to fix the problem but shortly it was back in and taken behind the wall.

Guy Smith, #16 Dyson Crawford: “Rob started but flat spotted the tire so we had to make an unscheduled pit top. Ollie is in now and the car seems to be running pretty well. I only got about 6 laps in during practice so this next stint will be the first real time I had in the car.” Gavin took the car from last in class up to about twentieth before handing off to Smith. At hour 4 the #16 is on pace and in the 16th position.

Things aren’t going well at all for the #20 Howard Crawford. A frustrated Andy Wallace explains: “These new Bosch ECUs have really given us nothing but problems. Why they had to switch to these I don’t know. It just keeps burning up the coils. And the traffic out there is ridiculous. Grand-Am has got to do something about the qualification of drivers allowed in this race. Some of these guys are just awful. They’re all over the place, they have no idea what they are doing. In a race this big, that is crazy. You won’t see that level of driving at Le Mans, that’s for sure.”